A car carrying tourists crashed in Italy

Venice (AFP) – Firefighters worked until dawn on Wednesday to remove the wreckage of a bus that crashed in a neighborhood of the Italian city of Venice, across the lake from its historic center, killing 21 people and injuring at least 15, most of them foreign tourists returning to… City. Nearby camping site.

The victims included at least four Ukrainians and a German citizen, according to the Venice Prefecture. Local officials said that among the injured, including five in serious condition, were French, Spanish and Croatian citizens.

Venice Governor Michele De Bari said that at least two of those killed were children, adding that many of the people involved in the incident were “young men.”

The bus – which was new and electric – was carrying foreign tourists when it fell from a high street on Tuesday evening and caught fire. The bus was connecting Piazza Roma, in the historic center of Venice, to the Ho camp in Marghera, another area of ​​Venice adjacent to Mestre.

Italian driver Alberto Rizzuto was killed in the accident. Prosecutors in Venice are investigating whether he felt ill while driving. Renato Borasso, a Venice city council member, said he was an experienced driver.

Godstime Erheneden was in his apartment near the scene of the accident when he heard a crash outside. He rushed out and was among the first to enter the bus.

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“When we entered, we saw the driver immediately. He was dead. I carried a woman on my shoulders, and then I carried a man,” Erhenden told Venice daily Il Gazzettino.

“The woman was screaming, ‘My daughter, my daughter,’ so I went back inside. I saw this girl who must have been two years old. I have a boy who is a year and 10 months old and the same size. I felt like I was holding my son in my arms. It was terrible. I don’t know if she survived.” “I thought she was alive but when rescuers arrived they took her away immediately,” Erheneden said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the scene was “horrific” and declared the city in mourning.

In 2017, 16 people died on a bus carrying Hungarian students in an accident near the northern city of Verona. In 2013, 40 people were killed in one of Italy’s worst car accidents when a bus fell from a bridge near the southern city of Avellino.

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